Sunday, July 03, 2016

Jennifer Rubin keeps getting Donald Trump wrong

Jennifer Rubin is the token conservative blogger at the Washington Post whose main duty seems to be predicting Donald Trump will fail.

(Paul Mirengoff at PowerLine, hardly a Trumpkin, observed: "To my knowledge, not a single conservative or right of center columnist in the Post’s stable has expressed anything other than contempt for Donald Trump. From Charles Krauthammer to Jennifer Rubin, they all seem to despise the tycoon. Michael Gerson slams Trump at every opportunity. If he’s written a negative column about Hillary Clinton recently, I missed it.")

His new communications hire Jason Miller (one of the few on Sen. Ted Cruz’s team to sell his soul to Trump, but not before deleting his blistering tweets criticizing Trump during the campaign) put out a vapid statement on the attack: “The terrorist threat has never been greater. Our enemies are brutal and ruthless and will do anything to murder those who do not bend to their will. We must take steps now to protect America from terrorists, and do everything in our power to improve our security to keep America safe.” What might those steps be? Of course, Trump offers nothing.

Without a teleprompter, Trump sounded even worse, like an overwhelmed fifth-grader. “Many many people killed, many many people injured,” Trump said at a stop in Ohio. “Folks, there is something going on that is really really bad. It’s bad, and we had better get smart, and we better get tough, or we are not going to have much of a country left. It’s bad.” This man wants to be commander in chief. Feel safer? Me neither.

You see any cogent argument against the man's policy? Me neither.

Well, of course not. Rubin has not supplied the relevant quotes. Trump has a plan. Crackdown on Muslim immigration, rally NATO to take on ISIS, and quit pretending radical Islamists do not exist. But Rubin is not paid to think; she is paid top attack and she is terrible at it.

The Post reports, “Donald Trump, the reality TV and real estate impresario, descended a golden escalator in a building that bears his name to announce that this time, he actually is running for president. . . . [T]hose who take Trump’s financial disclosure at face value should be aware: Even the most aggressive auditors have found it challenging to assess his balance sheet, in part because his assets and liabilities are intricately complex, entwined with public subsidies and opaque private partnerships. Then there’s the source: Trump himself, who comes with an outsized reputation as a chronic exaggerator.”

I think the technical term is “huckster.”

If you found Donald Trump’s rambling, incoherent announcement of his presidential run to be troubling, you will be dismayed to learn that he’s got a recipe for winning: “According to Donald Trump, a 2016 ticket of Trump for president and Oprah Winfrey for vice president would be a lock for the White House.”

Thunk.

Now as fun as the ad hominem attack is, you really cede the high ground when you do that.

On July 21, 2015, Trump led the Real Clear Politics Average for the first time, a lead he would hold for the rest of the nomination process except for a few days in November when Ben Carson led.So what did Rubin write on July 21?

Donald Trump’s self-destruction will soon manifest itself in his drop in the polls. The problem remains for those GOP voters still seeking a candidate who is a viable alternative to Jeb Bush. It is not likely to be Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who has been outshone by more credible candidates and again showed bad judgment in trying to ingratiate himself with Trump. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. seems practically irrelevant to the race, and his preference to let the Obama administration negotiate with Iran rather than press for sanctions may be the death knell of his effort.

MSM reporters and liberal pundits would have us believe that Donald Trump is immune to political gravity. They say he need not play by the rules that other candidates must follow. Well, they said the same thing about Hillary Clinton before her favorables sank and she lost the lead in hypothetical matchups against Republicans. The difference between Clinton and Trump, however, is that the latter has five or more opponents who are credible alternatives for GOP voters.

Post-debate online polls aside, as voters process Trump’s debate and post-debate conduct and get closer to actually casting a ballot, Trump will fade. As we saw in the 2014 Senate primaries, the incendiary side of the GOP does not possess the numbers to win against well-financed and skilled pols.

Everyone would be advised to take a deep breath. Check the calendar (it’s still August). Remember who Trump supporters are. As Ramesh Ponnuru noted: “Take away the celebrity-besotted, the non-voters, and the single-issue opponents of immigration, and you’re left with a group of conservatives who deeply dislike what they see as a spineless Republican establishment. These voters never determine the nominee, because too many of them waste their passion on hopeless candidates, such as Ben Carson, Michele Bachmann . . . Donald Trump.” Already in the Des Moines Register poll, the most reliable Iowa poll available, Trump lead is down to a mere five points over Carson. Considering how Trump has dominated the airwaves, it’s not an impressive poll for him.

Actually, the Des Moines Poll is off by an average of 7.5 points every four years. But what are facts really? Everyone says it is the most reliable poll, therefore it is. That's called DC logic.On October 23, she wrote:

Will Donald Trump stick around to lose in Iowa?

This is not a good week for Donald Trump. His 9/11 story evoked significant criticism not just from other candidates but also from the wider conservative audience, which is angry he is blaming President George W. Bush for the al-Qaeda attack that was allowed to develop during the Clinton years.

Then (whether there is causality is unknowable) there are two near-identical Iowa polls showing Ben Carson at 28 percent, crushing Trump (who falls to 20 and 19, respectively, in the Quinnipiac poll and the highly reliable Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll.) That is the first significant sign that the Trump balloon is losing air.

Ah, President Carson. Remember?

I do not mind that Rubin is attacking Trump all the time. What bugs me is she is so terrible at it.

11 comments:

"His new communications hire Jason Miller (one of the few on Sen. Ted Cruz’s team to sell his soul to Trump,..." She hates him; she really hates him.

"As Ramesh Ponnuru noted: “Take away the celebrity-besotted, the non-voters, and the single-issue opponents of immigration, and you’re left with a group of conservatives who deeply dislike what they see as a spineless Republican establishment. These voters never determine the nominee, because too many of them waste their passion on hopeless candidates, such as Ben Carson, Michele Bachmann . . . Donald Trump.” Again, explains Trump.

She reminds me of Nipper, the RCA dog, listening to "her Master's voice", and repeating it.

It may be fun to ridicule her, but frankly I don't think anyone reads her, except people like you. The libs don't, and people where I'm from would rather wipe a bum's ass than pick up a Washington Post (outside the university crowd, of course).

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I live in Poca, West Virginia, with my lovely wife of 40 years, Lou Ann. I am an Army veteran and Cleveland State graduate. I retired after 40 years as a newspaperman. In 2016, I published "Trump the Press," which drew rave reviews at Power Line and Instapundit.